Industrial computer workstations typically are industrial personal computers that include a flat panel display, a microprocessor, memory disk storage, keypad, touch screen and/or pointing device. Such workstations are typically designed to run under DOS, Windows 95 or NT, and other popular operating systems and can utilize a number of application programs which are commercially available. Also, such workstations can typically be expanded using expansion cards (available in many form factors).
As illustrated in FIG. 1, such keypad input may be provided by a sealed membrane keypad with multiple relegendable function keys and dedicated cursor and operation keys. Typically, any individual key is programmable.
A typical pointing device, as also illustrated in FIG. 1, is a Microsoft mouse compatible industrial pointing device.
The flat panel display may be either a monochrome, passive or active color display. Also, the memory may include DRAM and flash memory and the workstation may also include a hard drive, a floppy drive, CDROM drive, PCMCIA expansion, and others.
Typically, the main circuit board in the workstation of FIGS. 1-4 handles the computing tasks and also provides the following functions for external connections to an external keyboard, communication ports, parallel/printer port, and external floppy port. Also, the mainboard provides internal connections for a front panel display/keyboard connector, fan power, hard drive interface and connector, power connector, DRAM SIMM sockets, cache memory sockets, ISA, EISA and/or PCI header and card mounting standoffs, and internal floppy.
External connector ports are specifically illustrated in FIG. 3.
As illustrated in FIGS. 3 and 4, the workstation can be installed as a unit in a customer's electrical panel by first positioning the workstation within a cut-out in the panel and then, from the rear of the workstation, inserting mounting clips into slots formed on the top, bottom, and sides of the housing of the workstation. Mounting clips and screws are provided to secure the workstation to the electrical panel. After tightening of the screws, the workstation is sealed in the electrical panel.
One of the problems associated with the prior art, including the prior art of FIGS. 1-14, is that in order to service and maintain the workstation, the entire unit must be removed from the electrical panel.
One prior art solution is to provide the connector halves which provide electrical connection between a relatively small rear portion of the back housing and the rest of the back housing. The display, however, is not accessible in this configuration.
Another prior art solution is to hingedly connect the front and rear housings. However, this configuration does not allow the rear housing to completely separate from the front housing because of the hinge and because one or more cables extend between the front and rear housings.
It is often necessary to service and maintain electrical and mechanical components of the workstation with the front and rear housings completely electrically and mechanically separated from one another to provide full access to the components such as the display, the display back lights, the disk drive, the CPU card, the keyboard card, and the power supply within the workstation.